ents."[33112]--"But one only would remain,[33113] Chaumette, for
instance; one would suffice to lead the horde," because it is the horde
itself which leads. "Its attachment will always be awarded to whoever
shows a disposition to follow it the closest in its outrages without in
any respect caring for its former leaders... Its liking for Marat and
Robespierre is not so great as for those who will exclaim, Let us kill,
let us plunder!" Let the leader of the day stop following the current of
the day, and he will be crushed as an obstacle or cast off as a piece of
wreckage.--Judge if they are willing to be entangled in the spider's
web which the Girondins put in their way. Instead of the metaphysical
constitution with which the Girondins confront them, they have one in
their own head ready made, simple to the last point, adapted to their
capacity and their instincts. The reader will call to mind one of their
chiefs, whom we have already met, M. Saule, "a stout, stunted little
old man, drunk all his life, formerly an upholsterer, then a peddler of
quackeries in the shape of four-penny boxes of hangman's grease, to
cure pains in the loins,[33114] afterwards chief of the claque in the
galleries of the Constituent Assembly and driven out for rascality,
restored under the Legislative Assembly, and, under the protection of a
groom of the Court, favored with a spot near the Assembly door, to
set up a patriotic coffee-shop, then awarded six hundred francs as a
recompense, provided with national quarters, appointed inspector of the
tribunes, a regulator of public opinion, and now "one of the madcaps
of the Corn-market." Such a man is typical, an average specimen of his
party, not only in education, character and conduct, but, again, in
ambition, principles, logic and success. "He swore that he would make
his fortune, and he did it. His constant cry was that nobles and priests
should be put down, and we no longer have either. He has constantly
shouted against the civil list, and the civil list has been suppressed.
At last, lodged in the house belonging to Louis XVI., he told him to his
face that his head ought to be struck off, and the head of Louis XVI.
has fallen."--Here, in a nutshell, is the history and the portrait
of all the others; it is not surprising that genuine Jacobins see the
Revolution in the same way as M. Saule,[33115]

* when, for them, the sole legitimate Constitution is the definitive
establishment of their omnipote